Even though the Obamacare mandate penalty was removed, there are still people complaining about that requirement, some even claiming it was an infringement on their freedom, even that they didn’t need health insurance.
The original Affordable Care Act (ACA) included the individual mandate—a requirement for most Americans to maintain basic health insurance or pay a tax penalty—to prevent adverse selection and a premium death spiral.
This was important because the ACA prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher premiums to people with pre-existing medical conditions.
This made it easier for healthy people to forego insurance until they got sick or injured. If only sick people joined the insurance pool, claims would increase, forcing insurers to raise premiums. Higher premiums would then drive out more healthy people, causing premiums to spike further. Premiums would become less and less affordable.
Insurance, any insurance, only works when the risk pool of policyholders includes people with no or minimal claims over a period of time.
People who forego health insurance can end up shifting the cost of care they receive but don’t pay for on to others.
Individuals who understand the concept of insurance hope they never have a claim because a claim means something bad has happened.
So what if they complained. I knew people who went without any coverage because it was expensive and then got hit with an expensive bill for an unexpected hospital episode. Of course they complained how it hit their savings. Never once did it occur to them they could have spread that cost out over some years with a health policy.
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